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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;CannedMeat, post: 34837, member: 1551&quot;]If someone one presents a circular cylinder of metal to you and says &quot;this is an ounce of gold&quot; or &quot;this is worth a dollar&quot; (depending on the time period), do you take them at their word?&nbsp; History is full of the creation of debased and otherwise fake coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>If every merchant has a scale, and enough knowledge to tell if the lumps of metal are reasonably pure, trading lumps or jewelry works.&nbsp; But that doesn&#039;t work at all for fiduciary items. Tokens or coins reduce the effort of evaluating the payment.</p><p><br /></p><p>If &quot;coins&quot; were issued without a special mark, anyone could issue coins that looked the same without repercussion.&nbsp; The mark gives the merchants confidence to accept the coin, and the issuer the right to go after someone who issues fakes and stop them saying &quot;this is fraud&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>The mark doesn&#039;t have to be one specific symbol on the coin, it can be a combination that fall under the general category of &quot;Its shape and size and other details of its physical state&quot;.&nbsp; But it need to be something that the culture (and judicial system) would recognize as specific to coins and not acceptable to copy.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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